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IRIN Asia | Asia | Kyrgyzstan | KYRGYZSTAN: Nuclear waste dumps threaten environment | Early Warning Environment Natural Disasters | Feature

KYRGYZSTAN: Nuclear waste dumps threaten environment
IRIN News 10 September 2008 “………………………Kyrgyzstan was one of the former Soviet Union’s most important sources of uranium and rare-earth metals. The enterprises that extracted those materials – which began in the 1940s – left behind enormous amounts of industrial waste, including radioactive materials, according to UNDP.

From 1946 to 1968, more than 10,000MT of uranium ore was extracted from the Mailuu-Suu uranium mine and processed in the area, according to the Kyrgyz Emergencies Ministry. The ministry said some 2 million cubic metres of radioactive waste was being stored in 23 dumps and 13 tailings in the region.
Some 6,500 hectares of land in Kyrgyzstan have been exposed to radioactive contamination. It now hosts 92 hazardous waste dumps holding 254 million cubic metres (475 million tonnes) of waste containing radionuclides and other toxic substances.

This volume of waste includes dormant mines, untreated tailing dumps and untreated rock debris………………………………Specialists say the potential for environmental pollution from radioactive waste in Kyrgyzstan is high and they have highlighted several factors that increase this risk – earthquakes; soil erosion, through floods, mudslides, and landslides; long-term lack of controls and reconstruction/maintenance engineering at the tailing sites; and the location of most of the radioactive waste close to transboundary river basins, which creates a risk that contamination could spread across the Central Asian region.

IRIN Asia | Asia | Kyrgyzstan | KYRGYZSTAN: Nuclear waste dumps threaten environment | Early Warning Environment Natural Disasters | Feature

Tags: nuclear antinuclear, radioactive, uranium

September 10, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics